Between high inflation and increased food, petrol and energy costs, shoppers were more motivated than ever to take advantage of Black Friday. FNB reports that on Black Friday its customers spent more than R3 billion collectively – R748,546,200,000 less than the sum Elon paid for Twitter. It’s the most money FNB has seen spent on Black Friday in the past four years, according to the bank, which isn’t a surprise considering the pandemic we had a little while ago. The bank said in a statement that over R2.4bn was spent in-store (card-present), whereas over R670 million was online shopping (card-not-present). Chris Labuschagne, CEO of FNB Card, said FNB virtual cards also registered a significant increase in spending, accounting for over R137m in purchases compared with just R36m during the 2021 Black Friday, a 280% increase. This article was first published on MyBroadband – Asime Nyide
FNB customers spent R3 billion on Black Friday — here is what they bought
FNB said its customers spent over R3 billion on Black Friday last week, the highest amount in the past four years.
The bank said in excess of R2.4 billion was spent in-store, an increase of 18% from the previous year, while over R670 million was spent online, a rise of 31%.
FNB Card CEO Chris Labuschagne said it was “always likely” that many shoppers in the country would take advantage of Black Friday deals in a market with an increased cost of living.
Labuschagne explained there was a “robust recovery” in the most popular spending categories — including travel and transportation, groceries, clothing, and entertainment.
“The increase in travel is especially encouraging given that many consumers were unable to travel in the past few years due to global travel limitations, and it augurs well for the South African economy as the festive season approaches,” said Labuschagne.
FNB Card head of business development, Ashley Saffy, said customers were increasingly choosing safer and more convenient payment methods, like virtual cards for online spending and contactless cards and smart device transactions for in-store purchases.
More than R137 million in purchases were made using FNB’s virtual cards, an increase of 280% over the R36 million spent using these cards on Black Friday in 2021.
FNB considers virtual cards more secure as they have a card verification value (CVV) that changes every hour, providing an extra layer of protection should other card details be exposed and exploited.
The cards can be used for online shopping and linked to digital payment wallets like Apple Pay or Samsung Pay for in-person payments using a smartphone or smartwatch at NFC-enabled terminals.
“It’s also encouraging to see that contactless payments increased by 36% compared to last year’s Black Friday, demonstrating that customers are becoming more aware of convenient and safer payment methods, whether they shop in-store or online,” Saffy said.
FNB added that although it made sense for shoppers to try and get good deals on Black Friday, they must keep in mind that the festive season is long and should avoid excessive and impulsive spending.
The bank advised its customers to use its eBucks Rewards programme and set up and track their budgets through the Nav>> Smart Budgeting feature on the FNB App.
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